Painting War - German Army in WWII

"Blacklining"

Above: the difference between brown wash (left) and standard brown paint (right).
Below: Two Perry "Retreat from Moscow" figures before their white equipment straps are lined.

Above: white equipment straps blacklined with a charcoal wash.
Below: white equipment straps blacklined with a dark brown (bittersweet) wash.

COMPARISON: The backpack of the figure above had not been lined. The figure below has had the white leather on the backpack blacklined with a dark brown wash, making the details more striking and realistic.

Back in the Saddle Again!

The "Retreat from Moscow" pictures are from the last game I was able to play with the "Gig Harbor Irregulars" before we left the area. After putting 1800 miles on the car, visiting Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Jackson Hole, we arrived in Colorado Springs safely. We are still settling in; while I have not yet reported to work, I have started to paint again - ahhhh! I will try to post more pictures from local games and ongoing projects here. Thanks for your patience!

Retreat from Moscow, Game 1

Above, from left to right: Scott Murphy, Bruce Duthie and Bruce Meyer.

Above, from left to right: Murphy, Duthie, Meyer, Mikey G, Mark, John McEwan, Steve Gahn and Gene Anderson.

Above: the only new face is Kevin Smyth wearing the ball cap. The only player I failed to photograph was Gary Griess!

Retreat from Moscow - pre-game photos showing off our miniatures

The photos above are Bruce Meyer's pre-game table set up. The figures below are my contribution to the game. I think I need to "snow" their clothing.

The following pictures are figures from Bruce's impressive collection.

 The final pictures are Mikey G's units. They were, in part, from an amazing eBay find!

Some pictures from our "Retreat from Moscow" game. The first pics are from the pre-game set up; most of the wrecked items are Bruce's but the third pic, the Duellist's wagon, is mine. Figures on the speckled gray table are mine (and I realized that I forgot to "snow up" their clothing!), those on the wooden table are Bruce's (some he painted, some he got Fernando Enterprises to paint) and those on the white table are Mikey G's eBay purchase. Lots of awesome looking figures.

The players, from left to right around the table (and forgive me for not knowing everyone's last name!) are: Scott Murphy, Bruce Duthie, Bruce Meyer, Mikey G, Mark, John McEwan, Steve Ghan and Gene Anderson. Kevin Smyth arrived late (he's in the ball cap at the end of the table in later pics) as did Gary Griess (however, he failed to appear in any of the pictures I took!) An awesome group of gamers in the Gig Harbor Irregulars!

The rest of the pics are from the game. The French arrive in a gronk or disorganized mass. The Russians slowly whittle them down and the column slowly gets strung out with some French units more threatened than others. Russian Cossacks, regulars and peasants made an appearance on the table. Mark and Kevin's Frenchmen did a great job getting their original units across the table; Mark's wagons are seen getting off the table. Gary and John did a Malachi Crunch and captured Steve's group and wagon; Gary's peasants even did an awesome job fending off an attack by John's Cossacks intent of stealing their captives. I lost three units in the game but, due to the capture of a French gun, scored big as a Russian player. We did some in-game rules tweaking and know we've got more to do but Bruce's rules are pretty much 80% there on the first go!